


Goodnight Nobody

by kaigee



Series: contest entries 2019 - 2020 [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Avenger James "Rhodey" Rhodes, Avenger Pepper Potts, Fuck that movie, Gen, Happy Ending, Morgan Stark Needs a Hug (Marvel Cinematic Universe), Morgan Stark goes on a mission, Past Character Death, Poor Everyone, Poor Pepper Potts, Poor Rhodey, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), canon character death, my first endgame compliant fic haha, poor Happy, poor Morgan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-12
Updated: 2020-05-12
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:40:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24136738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaigee/pseuds/kaigee
Summary: Someone is making copies of dead people, and it is the Avenger's job to destroy them. Easy enough, until Morgan sees the one that looks like her father.
Relationships: Happy Hogan & Morgan Stark (Marvel Cinematic Universe), James "Rhodey" Rhodes & Morgan Stark (Marvel Cinematic Universe), Pepper Potts & Morgan Stark (Marvel Cinematic Universe), mentioned Pepper Potts/Tony Stark
Series: contest entries 2019 - 2020 [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2002735
Comments: 2
Kudos: 15





	Goodnight Nobody

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a contest on the FF.net 'writer's anonymous' forum. The prompt was 'mistaken identity'.
> 
> Thanks to [DocWordsmith](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DocWordsmith) for the beta read! <3

_ “ _ _ Morgan! Hey, where’s my Morgana?” _

_ Morgan giggles at the sound of her father’s voice. She is hiding in the closet, curled up under one of his big coats. They’re playing hide-and-seek and Morgan is winning. _

_ “Hmm,” she hears him say. “Could she be under the table?” She hears him walk over and pull a chair out. “Nope. Not under there. Hmm… maybe she’s behind the curtain?” _

_ Morgan covers her mouth with one hand to stifle her laugh. Her daddy is so stupid sometimes! _

_ “No…” she hears him say, walking loudly across the floor, closer to her. “Hmm… how about… the closet!” _

_ He throws the doors open. Morgan shrieks into her hand, and then starts to giggle again. She lifts the sleeve of the coat with one finger and past it she can see him, standing in the doorway, with a triumphant grin on his face. _

_ “Hey,” he says, after a moment, the grin replaced by a puzzled frown. “Where  _ is  _ she? I thought for sure she was in here.” _

_ Morgan drops the sleeve and huddles down beneath the coat, holding her breath. He hasn’t seen her yet. She can still win the game if she’s only very, very quiet. _

_ She hears soft footsteps as he walks into the closet, muttering softly under his breath as he searches through the coats on their hangers. “No, I don’t see her,” he says. “How is she such a good hider? Someday I will  _ have  _ to ask her where she learned it from. She could give me lessons!” Morgan snorts a laugh into her hand. _

_ Then he pounces. _

_ He pulls the coat off her and starts tickling her. Morgan shrieks and then starts laughing uncontrollably.  _

_ “Got you!” he cries. He stops tickling her and pulls her into a tight hug. “I win!” _

_ “Fine, you win,” Morgan says, wiggling around to try to squirm out of his arms. “You win, daddy! Just in time for Goodnight Moon!” _

_ “Of course, princess,” he says. He kisses her on the forehead. “I’ll  _ always  _ be in time for Goodnight Moon, you know.” _

  
  


* * *

**_Present day._ **

The Doppelgangers are back, for the fourteenth time. And this time, they’re in Times Square. It’s been made barely recognizable—empty of cars and people, all the neon signs shut off, turned to blank faces. The silence is eerie.

They walk together out of the shadows. There are four of them. Sometimes there are less, sometimes many more. It doesn’t matter that much; they are always the same on the inside. No memories, no emotion, nothing human. Just emptiness.

Pepper raises her chin and walks toward them. These are the last four—that they know of. After this all they have to do is find the madman who created them and  _ end it.  _ And then, finally, this nightmare will be over.

People will no longer have to see soulless duplicates of their lost loved ones marching zombie-like through the streets. People will no longer have to die, screaming, at the hands of creatures with the faces of people they once  _ knew.  _ The nightmare will  _ end. _

Pepper takes another step forward, and her teammates step beside her. The Doppelgangers— wearing the faces of Loki, Natasha, Vision, and Tony—emerge from the shadows. Some of them smile, some frown, but it is meaningless and cold. They are nothing but empty husks.

Pepper continues to walk forward. She does not avert her eyes, she does not turn her head. Instead, she raises one hand and smiles coldly at the whine of the repulsor. She has lived too long to be swayed by a trick like this. She has seen too much.

Behind her, Pepper hears Wanda murmur “Vis” under her breath. Pepper grimaces, but she can’t blame Wanda for it. She is so young, and she and Vision were so close.

Around Stormbreaker’s handle, Thor’s knuckles are white. There is cold fury in his eyes, and it undoubtedly seeps through to his very core. His red cape flows back as he storms toward the copy of his brother Loki, and silently, Pepper cheers him on.

Clint is different. His eyes look like open wounds. Pepper aches for him.

And to either side of Pepper walk Rhodey and Peter. Glancing at them, she can see anger and sadness. Especially in Peter. He’s just a kid, and though he puts on a brave face, she can still see him blinking quickly as if to push back tears. Despite that, he holds his head high, and though all of Pepper’s motherly instincts are urging her to put a warm hand on his shoulder. It would only be an insult to his pride, and the cold metal hand of the suit wouldn’t be very comforting anyway.

Pepper looks away from them, and turns her eyes straight ahead. The copy of Tony looks back at her. Warm brown eyes, tousled hair. An old band t-shirt, even. That exact smile that Tony used to make when he was about to tell a joke that would make Pepper laugh until she couldn’t breathe, or when he was playing a game with Morgan, who he loved so much.

Pepper feels only hatred.

Hatred for this thing that has stolen her husband’s face. Even moreso for whoever is controlling it—who has decided to lift the Doppelganger’s hand and make it wave like a puppet on a string. He‘s making it wave at her. He’s making it smile.

It’s sick.

Before they left to fight this fourteenth fight against the Doppels, Fury kept them for a long time in his office, glaring at them with his one eye, reminding them once again that these things were created just to get into their heads. That it’s not real, those aren’t your loved ones. 

Pepper didn’t need the reminder. She knows.

Without a second thought she raises the repulsor, looks Tony’s smiling copy dead in the eyes, and shoots.

* * *

“Your pancakes are ready, Highness,” Happy says, with a little bow and a grin. He puts the plate down in front of Morgan—two golden-brown pancakes, with strawberries on top, arranged into little smiley faces. 

“These are chocolate chip, right?” she asks.

“Of course,” he says. “Only the best for you, Miss Stark.”

She eyes him suspiciously, one eyebrow raised, then shrugs and digs in. When she next looks up, syrup dripping down her chin, it’s only to give Happy a quick thumbs up before she goes back to devour the rest of them.

“Glad you like ‘em. Pepper—er, your mom—would kill me if she found out I gave you so much sugar, but if we keep this just between us…”

“Don’t worry,” Morgan says, grinning at him with a mouthful of pancake and gooey melted chocolate. “My lips are sealed.” She makes an exaggerated zipper motion over her mouth, and Happy laughs, loud and booming, his belly bouncing. 

He reaches out to ruffle her hair, and Morgan ducks away, “Ugh, Uncle  _ Happy!” _ grabbing her fork and holding it up threateningly.

Happy settles back heavily into his seat. “Fine, fine,” he says, hands up. “I won’t mess up your  _ coiffure.” _

Morgan rolls her eyes at him as she puts the fork down, even though she doesn’t know what that word means. She knows Happy’s making fun of her, and he deserves an eye roll for that. 

Happy laughs again at her eye roll, of course, but this laugher is softer and dies away quickly. He starts staring at the opposite wall, going still, which is something he does a lot now.  _ “He’s just thinking,”  _ Mommy told Morgan, once.  _ “Gone away to his mind-palace to think about things. Best not interrupt him.” _

Morgan wonders, sometimes, why  _ she  _ doesn’t have a mind-palace, but maybe it’s something that comes when you’re older.

“When is Mommy coming back, Happy?” she asks, interrupting him anyway. She meant to wait, but she got impatient. Mommy was gone all day yesterday, and still hasn’t come back yet. That’s fourteen days total over the last two months that she’s been missing, and Morgan wants her to come  _ home. _

“Soon, peaches. As soon as she can. But you know, the mission your mom is on is very important. She and the others still have to arrest the—” he falters.

“The Doppelgangers,” Morgan says. 

Happy hesitates, looking like he’s going to say something, but then he just nods. “Yeah,” he says. “Them.”

“Can I watch on the TV?”

“No,” he shakes his head slowly, laboriously. “No, sweetheart. You don’t need to see that.”

“You  _ never  _ let me watch.”

“And I won’t. Not until you’re older.”

Morgan huffs, sticking out a pouty lip, and hunches down in her chair, glaring at the syrupy plate. When that doesn’t change his mind, she sits up and tugs at his sleeve, going, “Happy,  _ pleeeease,” _ in a high-pitched whiny voice.

“Aw, honey, I’d  _ love to,  _ but you know I—”

Happy and Morgan both look up at the sound of a distant  _ thud,  _ coming from the roof.

“Oh, sounds like Pepper’s back—” Happy starts.

“Mommy!” Morgan interrupts him with a happy squeal, jumping out of her seat and running full speed down the hall to the elevator. She bounces on her heels as she waits for the doors to open, chanting, “Mommy, Mommy, Mommy,” under her breath. Morgan wants to show her mom the helmet she built in the lab yesterday, and she wants to complain to her about how Happy wouldn’t let her put explosives in it—she wants to _blow stuff up_ just like her dad used to, is that too much to ask?

Morgan waits a long time, but the elevator doesn’t open.

_ “My apologies, Miss Morgan,”  _ FRIDAY says.  _ “But your mother has elected to restrict you from accessing the room for the next few hours. The Avengers have arrived with prisoners and are currently deciding what to do with them.” _

Behind Morgan, Happy gives a sigh of relief.

“Oh  _ no _ ,” Morgan says, as she slyly pulls one of her inventions out of her pocket—something she made last week and has been carrying around ever since, just in case she needed to use it. “FRIDAY,  _ pleaaase,”  _ she says, as she sticks the little machine in the tiny space in between the elevator doors. Morgan turns around and sniffles a little, sticking out her lower lip. “Happ _ yyy.” _

“Sorry, little miss,” Happy says, looking extremely relieved. He stands up and starts to walk towards her, arms out as if he’s planning on picking her up. “Come on now, let’s go in the living room and watch some TV, okay?”

Morgan reaches behind her back and presses the button on the top of the machine. It gives an enthusiastic  _ groaning  _ sound and the elevator doors slide slowly open. “Sorry!” she cries, grinning as she steps into the elevator. “No time for that, maybe later!”

Happy’s eyes go wide  and  his jaw drops in horror. He lunges for her, but the doors close before he can reach her.

“Yes!” Morgan cries, pumping her fist. 

She spins in a triumphant circle, bouncing like an excited kangaroo. Her invention worked _. _ Her invention  _ worked!  _

_ I’m getting there, Daddy,  _ she thinks. Maybe if she thinks it hard enough he’ll be able to hear it, wherever he is.  _ Someday I’ll be just as smart as you. _

If he hears her, she hopes he smiles and says,  _ That’s my Morgana.  _ He used to say that a lot, and it always made her feel warm and bubbly inside, like a cup of Mommy’s favorite green tea.

_ “Miss Morgan,”  _ FRIDAY says, in a soft voice, sounding a lot like Mom. _ “While I am very impressed by your invention, I am afraid I cannot allow this elevator to bring you to the roof. Your mother and the other Avengers have brought several prisoners up there, and I do not think she would want you to see them.” _

“Override, FRIDAY,” Morgan says, easily. “Code 221 Alpha.” It’s something Morgan heard Daddy say several times. He probably thought she wouldn’t remember it, but she wrote it down right away. Maybe his old codes still work.

_ “As you say, Boss. I’ll take you to the roof right away,”  _ FRIDAY says, her tone more clipped now, like a soldier speaking to his commanding officer.  _ Boss,  _ Morgan remembers, was what FRIDAY always called her dad.

Morgan bounces a bit on her heels, excited by her second victory in as many minutes. The elevator climbs quickly, and Morgan starts actually bouncing, jumping up and down in her excitement to see her mommy, to tell her all about the invention she made. She’s sure Mommy will be proud. Maybe now she’ll even let her go in Daddy’s old workshop.

The elevator slows as it reaches its stop. Morgan stops bouncing and starts to fidget, hopping from foot to foot, “Open, open, open,” she chants impatiently. 

_ “You have reached the roof, Boss,”  _ FRIDAY says.

The doors slide open.

“Mommy!” Morgan cries, seeing her immediately. Her mommy is still wearing her silver suit, but the face plate is down, and Morgan can see her eyes widen when she sees her. Morgan runs to her, heedless of the other Avengers standing around them, of the prisoners at the back, bound with magic ropes, glowing red. 

Morgan wraps her arms around her mommy’s legs. She doesn’t care that the metal is cold, that it's uncomfortable to lay her cheek on. Mommy was gone for two whole days and Morgan  _ missed  _ her.

She lets go quickly, though, and starts talking right away. “I built this!” she cries, waving the little mechanism in the air. “I built it, and it  _ worked,  _ and I came all the way up here to say ‘hi’ to you. Come over to the elevator, I can show you what it does!”

“Okay, okay, honey,” Mommy says, bending down to pick her up, metal hands under Morgan’s armpits. Morgan frowns when she looks into her mom’s eyes. She seems really nervous, almost panicked. “Let’s just get you out of here fast.” Mommy glances to the left and makes a weird gesture in the air. Morgan follows her gaze and sees Rhodey standing there, sees him nod and turn away. Morgan raises her hand to wave at him, but her Mommy makes a panicked noise in her throat and puts a hand up near Morgan’s face, blocking her view.

“Hey, I just wanted to wave to Rhodey!” Morgan cries. Mommy holds her closer and starts to carry her to the elevator. She’s walking  _ fast,  _ and Morgan doesn’t have long to get Rhodey’s attention. She wriggles in Mommy’s grip, ducks her head to see past her hand, and sees—

_ Daddy _ .

He’s standing with the prisoners, he has red magic cuffs around his wrists, tangled up like ribbons. He’s looking straight at her, he’s right  _ there!  _ “Daddy!” Morgan cries. She starts frantically wriggling in her mom’s grip, and manages to squeeze free and drop to the ground.

Then she’s running. Running faster than she’s ever run before, squealing at the top of her lungs, not even  _ words,  _ just happy screeches, like a parrot who’s been given a bag of seeds. She runs, and runs, and Daddy looks right at her, he’s so  _ close _ , Morgan has never been happier—

“Got her!” someone cries. She's being lifted, up and away from him. Morgan kicks and screams, her Daddy's eyes go wide and he looks  _ so sad,  _ and Morgan tries and tries but she can't get away. She's pressed against someone's chest, her eyes covered so she can't see her dad anymore. Someone speaks, it's Rhodey's voice, "I'll get her to the elevator—"

"Let me go!" Morgan interrupts him, screaming, "That's my dad! That's my  _ dad!  _ Let me  _ go!" _

Rhodey holds her tighter, crushing her with his metal arms. “Quick,” she hears him say, but he sounds far away, and she can hardly hear him behind the sounds of her own panicked shrieks. 

“Let me go!” Morgan cries again, although by now she knows it’s hopeless—they’re nearly to the elevator and Rhodey just won’t let her go. Tears blur her eyes. “Let me  _ go,” _ Morgan says, in between sniffles. Her dad is  _ right there.  _ He’s been gone so long, she missed him  _ so much, _ and now she can finally go hug him—why won’t they let her?

The elevator doors close. Morgan sobs and sobs, the tears falling like snowflakes now that she can no longer see her dad. Her legs dangle uselessly beneath her, Rhodey’s arms around her are tight as vices. “Sorry, kiddo,” he says. “ I’m so, s o sorry.”

Morgan wants to hit him. She wants to kick and punch him, she wants to knock out all his teeth. But he’s safe in his metal suit where she can’t get him, so instead she just hangs there limply, all the fight gone out of her. 

At first she thinks she might even be too exhausted to speak, but after a while the words appear on the tip of her tongue, and spill right out before she can stop them. “Why can’t I see him? Why can’t I see my dad, Rhodey?”

She doesn’t look at him, but she can picture the look on his face when she hears him sigh—eyes big and droopy, forehead crinkled up into lines, the corners of his lips turned way down. “It’s complicated,” he says, slowly. “But your mom should be waiting for us down in your room. She’ll explain it to you, all right?”

“How long until I can see him?” Morgan asks.

Rhodey takes a long time to answer. When he does, he sounds sad. Just sad. The kind of sad that Morgan has been hearing a lot in his, Happy’s, and her mom’s voices this past month. “It’s gonna be a long time, kid,” he says.

Morgan sniffles again. Her eyes feel like they’re burning. She can’t even wriggle her arms free to wipe away the tears; they just keep sliding down her chin.

They spend the rest of the elevator ride in silence, but Rhodey’s arms do loosen a bit around her, turning into a hug.

* * *

“Morgan,” Mom says, running to her, scooping her up in her arms. Morgan stands stiffly as her mom kisses her on the cheeks and pulls her into a tight hug. Morgan does not wrap her arms around her. All Morgan does is stand straight with her arms at her sides.

“Let me go see him,” she says. Not crying anymore. She wiped away her tears as soon as Rhodey let go of her. 

“Sweetie, I’m so sorry,” Mom says, after she pulls away. Her eyes are wide and her makeup is drippy; a few pieces of hair have slipped from her ponytail and are floating around in the air. She looks sadder than the day they thought Daddy was dead. On that day, she looked like nothing at all.

Rhodey squats beside her and puts a hand on her shoulder. Morgan shakes him off.

“Why won’t you let me see him?” she cries. Her eyes prickle again. Why are they being like this?

Mommy stares at her, breathing quickly almost like she’s frightened. “Honey… please don’t be mad. I know we must seem awful, but we’re just trying to keep you safe. That…  _ thing  _ up there.” She cups Morgan’s cheek. “That’s not your dad.”

“He’s  _ right there,” _ Morgan says.

Mommy shakes her head. “No, honey, you have to understand. It’s not him.”

“It is. I saw him. See, I  _ told  _ you he would come back eventually.”

No one says anything for a while after that.

Then Rhodey gently touches her face, making her look at him. “You know how your mom and I have been going on a lot of missions lately? We were fighting  _ those things.  _ They’re… duplicates. Of real people. People who died. They’re just copies. They can’t think for themselves, they don’t have any memories. They’re awful, and they’ve been hurting people. That’s not your dad. That’s not…” he breathes shakily. “That’s not Tony. I’m sorry.”

But that makes no sense. Morgan remembers seeing him, only a few minutes ago. He’d been standing  _ right there,  _ and he looked exactly like he always did. He was her  _ dad,  _ she would know him anywhere _.  _ He was gone for a long time but he came back, like he always said he would.  _ I’ll be back, sweetheart. I’ll come back, I promise. Just in time for Goodnight Moon.  _

They are both crouching in front of her, looking at her desperately, hoping that she’ll believe this stupid lie. 

“He’s right there,” Morgan says.

* * *

They locked her in her bedroom.

Before they did that, they told her that they were sorry over and over, and Mom kept hugging her and crying. They gave her a coloring book and some crayons and then they locked her in.

Morgan hates them.

For a while she pounds on the door with her feet and her fists, screaming for them to let her out. Then she sits on her bed and screams some more. Then she gives up and lays down.

Morgan cries.

If they would let Daddy out, then he could come to her room and read to her just like he used to every night. He would kiss her on the forehead just like he used to and call her ‘Sunshine’. 

Morgan sniffles. It’s been so long since she’s seen him. He was gone for so, so long.

She hates her mom for not letting her see him. She hates her, she hates her, she hates her.

Morgan sits up.

So what if Mom doesn’t want Morgan to talk to her dad? Morgan will do it anyway. She can get down there, she has a second device that she made in case something happened to the first one, tucked into her pocket. And it  doesn’t just open elevator doors, it can open normal doors, too. It can break locks.

She can set her dad free.

Morgan slides off the bed and goes to her closet, rooting around until she finds the Iron Man helmet she hid behind a pile of clothes.

“Almost there, Daddy,” she says, glancing over to the calendar hanging on her wall, with an ‘X’ marked for every day passed since Daddy’s disappearance. She won’t have to add any more ‘X’s now.

Morgan puts the helmet on, sticks her hand out, and shouts “Boom!” like the sound of a repulsor blast, pulling back her hand to pretend there was recoil, imagining a smoking hole left on the closet floor. 

Morgan stands up, whirls around, and screams “Boom!” again, and in her mind’s eyes the wall explodes and collapses. “Boom!” again, and now the door flies out on its hinges. “Boom, boom, boom!” there goes the house, there goes the door to the cell her dad is trapped in.

Morgan goes quiet, breathing heavily.

She looks at the clock. It’s 8:30, which is around the time she would normally go to bed. It’s the time her dad would come up and read her  _ Goodnight Moon, _ and Morgan would snuggle right into his side and trace the pictures with her finger. He would call her all sorts of nicknames, too, like  _ “pumpkin”  _ and  _ “nutter-butter biscuit”.  _ Sometimes he’d tickle her, and Morgan would laugh until her belly hurt.

Morgan sits on the bed again, holding her invention tight in her hands, and watches the clock. Mommy usually goes to bed around eleven. After that, Morgan will use the password to turn off FRIDAY, and then she can sneak right down to Daddy’s cell and no one will know.

“Boom,” Morgan whispers.

* * *

Morgan waits up until midnight, and then pushes the door open and slips through.

She tiptoes silently down the long hall. Morgan has read about creaky floorboards in a lot of books but the floorboards in the tower or in any of their other houses never creak. Mommy says that their carpet is thicker than most. Morgan thanks her very luckiest stars for that now.

“FRIDAY,” she whispers, holding tightly to the device with sweaty palms. “221 Alpha. Is anyone awake?”

_ “Mrs. Pepper Stark is currently asleep in her room, but—” _

“Woah, woah FRIDAY!” Morgan cries, stepping back into the shadows and putting her finger to her lips. “Talk quieter!”

_“Of course,”_ the AI says. When she next speaks, it is barely audible. _“As I was saying, Mrs. Stark is asleep in her room, but several of the other Avengers are still awake in the basement, where the Doppelgangers are being held. They are standing guard.”_

“Okay,” Morgan says, mulling this over. “Can you create a distraction?”

_ “Right away, Boss.” _

Morgan hears a distant explosion.

_ “They have left the cell unattended.” _

“Perfect!” Morgan cries, fist-bumping the air. Her plan is going perfectly! “All right, FRIDAY. Get ready to take me to the basement,” she says, as she tiptoes silently to the elevator. She does not have to use her little device this time; the doors open freely and she slips inside.

As the elevator starts to move, Morgan feels herself getting even more excited. She bounces lightly on the balls of her feet just like she did yesterday, unable to contain her energy. She wants to dance and jump, she wants to yell at the top of her lungs, but she has to stay quiet.

“What is he doing?” Morgan asks. “Did you tell him I’m coming to see him?”

_ “...tell who, Boss?” _

“Tell my dad,” Morgan says.

_ “Boss… Mr. Stark is not here. He passed away  _ _ six  _ _ months ago.” _

“No, he’s here,” Morgan says, matter-of-factly. “He came back. He’s in the cell right now.”

_ “That’s not him, Boss. That is a Doppelganger. I’m sorry, but that  _ thing  _ down there doesn’t know you, it’s not a real—” _

“Stop it, FRIDAY,” Morgan says, glaring at the ceiling, her little heart pounding harshly. “Stop it. You’re just a stupid robot. You don’t know anything. That  _ is  _ my dad.”  _ And I’m going to see him. _

_ “My apologies, Boss.” _

Morgan doesn’t respond. Instead she crosses her arms and fixes her eyes on the doors, as the floor count ticks slowly down, all the way to zero.

The doors slide open, and Morgan steps slowly out, holding the device tight in her small hands. At first, the basement appears completely dark, but once she enters the overhead lights flicker on, one by one, filling the room with eerie orange light.

Morgan sees tables covered in old equipment. She doesn’t know what most of it is, but she does see a few scraps of metal that remind her of the metal plates on one of her dad’s old Iron Man suits. Maybe this stuff is all stuff that he made. Maybe Mommy brought it all down here after she thought Daddy was dead, because she didn’t know what to do with any of it.

Even with the lights on, it’s still scary down here. All the sharp tools on the table cast long shadows on the wall that look like monsters, and the dead silence is unnerving. Morgan has never been down here before, and she keeps checking back as she walks, in case someone jumps out of a hiding place and decides to attack her. Maybe the monster they all thought Daddy died fighting is still alive, and waiting down here for her.

Morgan sticks her thumb in her mouth and starts to suck on it. She started doing that again after she thought Daddy was dead, after they told her he was never coming back.

He’s supposed to be down here. Where is he?

Morgan tiptoes cautiously around the last table and then she sees him. Tied up with the other four in a small cell with metal bars, right in the middle of the basement. Her Daddy is in the center, squished between the others, his hands bound tight behind his back and his eyes closed as if he’s asleep standing up. None of them are moving, none of them are making a single sound.

“Daddy!” Morgan cries, in a shrill voice, as she breaks into a run, loud footsteps echoing, heart pounding. “Daddy!” she skids to a halt by the cell door and pounds on the bars with her small fists. “Daddy, Daddy, wake up!”

It is quiet for a terrible moment. Then, as one, all four of them open their eyes. The robot with his red skin, the beautiful woman Morgan met once, the pasty-skinned man with green eyes that she has seen on the news a few times but never met in person. She doesn’t care about any of them. She only cares about her dad, with his bristly beard and fluffy hair and his eyes which are  _ open  _ and looking right at her.

He wants  _ out. _ She can tell. He wants to get out so he can hug her, hold her close, press scratchy kisses to her face. Morgan wants that too. She holds her device up to the big padlock with shaky, sweaty hands. “Just a moment,” she promises him. “I’ll get you out, don’t worry.” 

She fiddles with the padlock for several minutes. Her fingers are trembling so bad that it’s hard to hold, and she can’t fit the device into the keyhole. She grits her teeth. “Almost there,” she says without looking up. “I promise I’ll get you out.”

“Thank you,” one of them says. 

The wrong one.

Morgan looks up. It was the green-eyed man who spoke, his eyes fixed on her. They are all looking at her intently. Daddy’s eyes are wide but even when she stares at him he doesn’t speak.

“Just a moment,” Morgan says again, looking straight at him, into his eyes. “Almost done…”  she trails off, because he still won’t speak. The hairs on the back of her neck stick straight up as unease takes hold of her.  _ Something is off, _ she thinks, and swallows hard.

“Dad?” she asks, slowly, looking only at him. “Aren’t you going to say something?”

His eyes wander, unfocused, but when she speaks they latch onto her. He is standing stiffly, like a soldier, and so are the other three in the cell, barely touching. His hair is disheveled but she has not seen him run a hand through it to fix it, and neither has he fidgeted at all from foot to foot, or made any anxious motions with his hands. That’s not like her dad at all, because he was always moving, and could never stand still for even a moment.

But worse is the fact that he has not said a single word to her so far. He hasn’t called her “Sunshine” or “Morgana” or “sweet pea.” He isn’t pounding on the bars and trying to get out so he can hug her. He’s just  _ standing  _ there.

_ “They’re not real people,” _ Rhodey had said. “ _ Just copies. They don’t have any memories, they don’t have any emotions. That’s not your dad.” _

“Do you know me?” Morgan asks, standing up slowly, holding the device behind her back. “Dad… don’t you remember me?”

He cocks his head to the side. His eyes unfocus, then focus again, and he blinks, looking at her without any recognition in his eyes.

He opens his mouth. “Hello,” he says, the word unnatural and choppy. “It’s me. Please let me out. It’s me.” He sounds like a robot.

_ “It’s made to hurt you,”  _ Rhodey had said. Morgan swallows hard and wipes her eyes. If this is a Doppelgänger, it’s certainly doing its job.

But she has to be sure.

“Goodnight, room,” she says, softly. “Goodnight, moon.”

There’s no glimmer of recognition in his eyes, but Morgan ploughs on anyway, the words coming so easily she hardly even has to think, because her dad read her that story every night for three years, lying on top of the covers, running a hand through her hair.

“Goodnight, cow jumping over the moon. Goodnight… lamp and the red balloon.”

Morgan thinks about him, about how he would use funny voices to tell the story, different every night. How he would kiss her on the forehead when it was finished, tell her he loved her, walk to the door and, smiling, turn  off the light.  _ “Goodnight, sweetheart,”  _ he’d say.  _ “I love you so much.” _

The man in front of her says nothing.

Morgan thinks about the funeral they had six months ago, about how Mommy hugged her close when Morgan asked where Daddy went, how she kissed her and cried and said,  _ “he won’t be coming back.” _

Morgan thinks about the things her mom said earlier,  _ “it’s not real, baby. I’m sorry, it’s not real.”  _ She thinks about how much her mom loved her dad and how she would certainly be able to tell if something was different about him. She thinks about how her mom has been gone so often the past two months, off fighting some mysterious thing that no one told Morgan about.

Morgan looks at the thing in front of her, with its empty glassy eyes, packed into a small cell with three others just like it, all standing in the same stance with their arms at their sides, all staring straight ahead at the wall.

Morgan throws the device to the ground with a clatter. She curls her hands into fists, blood roars in her ears.

She looks at the thing with her dad’s face and uses a phrase her real dad taught her. “Go to hell,” she says. “You’re not my dad.”

It doesn’t even look at her.

Morgan turns and runs. She runs back to the elevator, and when that reaches the floor her room is on she runs out, all the way to her mom’s room.

She bursts in and runs to the bed her mom is sleeping in, the one she and Daddy used to share. She’s crying—she hadn’t realized, but now she can hear herself loudly sobbing—and Mommy rolls over and blinks awake. “Honey?”

Morgan crawls into bed beside her. “I went to the basement,” she tells her. “I was going to let him out, but it wasn’t him. He didn’t know me.”

“Oh, sweetheart…”

Mommy might say something else, but Morgan doesn’t hear her. She buries her face in the pillows and falls asleep.

* * *

In the morning the Doppelgangers are gone. The basement is empty.

Rhodey told her, and Morgan believes him. She doesn’t want to go down and look. “We didn’t kill them,” Rhodey continues, when Morgan asks, tugging insistently on his jeans. “Just took them far away, where we’ll never have to see them again.”

He sounds so sad. Morgan hugs his legs.

Then he has to leave. Mommy is going, too. They’re going to find whoever is creating the Doppelgangers. They’re going to stop him from ever making any more.

When they tell her this, they look at her with worry pinching their eyes. When she tells them she’s glad, their expressions even out.

They leave her with Happy. He makes her pancakes again, with smiley-faces, and then he sits across from her and smiles sadly, reaching across the table to give her shoulder a squeeze.

“I’m proud of you, little Stark,” he says. “You’ve been very brave. Just like your father.”

Morgan grins, big and wide. “Thanks,” she says, mouth full of pancake. Happy smiles in response,  actually h appy this time.

Morgan swallows down the pancake. “Tell me a story about him.”

“A Tony-story?” Happy says, excited now. He leans back in his chair and his eyes go far-away. “Well, after he got back from Afghanistan, the first thing your dad did was ask for a cheeseburger...”   
  


**Author's Note:**

> You can read Goodnight Moon [here](https://www.readstoriesforkids.com/goodnight-moon-story-text.html) \-- that's where I got the title. My own dad used to read me that story before bed so I thought it'd be a cute idea for this fic.


End file.
